| MEMORANDUM FROM: WARD BAKER TO: INTERESTED PARTIES DATE: NOVEMBER 7, 2024 RE: HOW WE WON OVERVIEW |
| Senator Marsha Blackburn was reelected by a resounding 30% margin over her Democratic opponent, capturing 64% (1,913,691 raw votes). Blackburn received more votes for U.S. Senate than any other candidate in Tennessee history. Blackburn won 93 out of 95 counties – including Haywood County. In a presidential year, a Republican hasn’t won Haywood since 2000. From the outside looking in it may have seemed like victory was never in doubt – however, Blackburn’s decisive win was a result of meticulous hard work and a team that never took anything for granted. When Gloria Johnson entered the race in September 2023, we realized given her status as a member of the so-called “Tennessee Three” she had the capability to be a strong low-dollar fundraiser. We studied past Democratic Senate candidates who even in traditionally Republican states raised significant funds. We were prepared for this race to potentially take a similar trajectory as South Carolina or Kentucky in 2020. Democrats flooded the zone with polling showing Jaime Harrison in a close race with Lindsey Graham and Amy McGrath in a close contest with Mitch McConnell, to help their respective fundraising efforts. At the end of the day in South Carolina in 2020, Jaime Harrison raised $133 million and in Kentucky in 2020, Amy McGrath raised $96 million. We obviously wanted to do everything in our power to avoid that happening in Tennessee in 2024. How did we prevent that from happening? First and foremost, that required us ensuring that no reputable poll could show this race remotely close – and it never was. Right from the outset of the race, we set the tone and successfully branded Gloria Johnson as a radical liberal who did not represent our Tennessee values. Now, you’re never going to hear the media report on this, but over the course of the ensuing 14 months deployed the following tactics and strategy as part of a sophisticated campaign, which took nothing for granted: Data-Driven Grassroots Campaign Aggressive Digital Fundraising Early & Conservative Message Targeted Paid Media DATA-DRIVEN GRASSROOTS CAMPAIGN: In 2024, Senator Blackburn once again led one of the strongest data-driven, grassroots campaigns in the whole country. Specifically, our campaign: Made Over 3.5 Million Personal Voter Contacts Knocked On Over 636,000 Doors 2.5 Million Peer To Peer Text Messages Over 200,000 Personal Handwritten Notes Trained 703 Volunteers On How To Run An Effective Campaign. AGGRESIVE DIGITAL FUNDRAISING: Across the nation, one of the challenges Republicans face is that we just cannot match Democrats’ low-dollar fundraising apparatus. Since Senator Blackburn was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2018 we have spent ample time and resources building up one of the top – if not the strongest – low digital fundraising programs in the country for an incumbent Republican Senator. Just this election cycle our low-dollar fundraising program accomplished the following: Raised over $14 million Over 745,229 total donations $18.95 average donation 123,346 unique donors We were able to beat the Democrats at their own game. There’s no denying that Senator Marsha Blackburn is the grassroots candidate. EARLY & CONSERVATIVE MESSAGE: We knew that we needed to control the boxing ring in this race – we needed to control the messaging and dictate the race on our terms, not the Democrats’ terms. And we have never been shy about who we are – we made it clear we were the conservative in the race. That is why this past Summer we bought targeted news programming with a cartoon ad demonstrating how Marsha Blackburn has held Big Tech’s “Feet to the Fire.” This was a different type of ad that was more likely to break through the clutter and went to the larger message that Marsha Blackburn is fighting for you. Additionally, during the Summer Olympics we went up with a substantial media buy that featured Riley Gaines talking about how we need to protect women’s sports from woke politicians. That message fit the programming and we heavily invested in streaming, specifically Peacock, which allowed us to be more efficient. Once our full paid media plan began it became clear we only further leaned into how we were the conservative in the race who gets things done for Tennesseans. Specifically, our advertising focused on: Senator Blackburn’s previous work to stop the income tax How it is time to “break some China“And how she has led the fight to stop China from buying up our farmland Senator Blackburn steps into the ring every day to defend TennesseeWhat Senator Blackburn has been doing to combat illegal immigration and crime Our campaign never ran a negative ad. All of our paid media whether it was Senator Blackburn or key surrogates carrying the advertising was part of the same message progression – Marsha Blackburn is fighting for our Tennessee conservative values. TARGETED PAID MEDIA: Not only did we deploy effective messaging, but we shot with a 30-30, not a shotgun. We heavily invested in digital video such as streaming, Connected TV, and OTA. Further, based upon data we were receiving across the state we were able to add resources to geographic areas where we had more room for growth such as East Shelby County, Montgomery County, and Rutherford County. Specifically, please see below how much we over-performed in those three regions compared to both the 2020 presidential race and the 2018 Senate race. |
| Additionally, throughout the campaign we targeted over 300,000 conservative leaning voters who had moved to the state since 2018 – and thus had never been able to vote for Senator Blackburn. Our voter contact and polling data showed that these voters had specifically moved to Tennessee because of our economy and that there is no state income tax. Thus, our messaging to this block of voters was focused on ensuring they knew the reason they do not have to pay an income tax in Tennessee was because of Marsha Blackburn. Our targeted advertising allowed us to overperform with key segments of the electorate. |
| A LEGACY FOR TENNESSEE REPUBLICANS: This campaign was not merely about re-electing Senator Marsha Blackburn. It was about putting the exclamation point on Marsha Blackburn’s being the leader of Tennessee’s Conservative grassroots movement. It was about Blackburn further growing our party in the State Senate and State House so we can keep our Super Majorities and training the next generation of operatives for cycles to come. Our campaign worked hand in glove with the down ballot races. We went door to door with state legislative candidates in both the primary and general elections. We made calls together, sent text messages, and invested in strong conservative state legislative candidates in order to ensure Tennessee can continue to lead the nation for generations to come. We were able to create a future of eventual operatives and candidates for Tennessee Republicans. |
| BOTTOM LINE: From the outset of the campaign, we took nothing for granted and wanted to set the tone. We wanted to run an even better campaign than we did in 2018 and show that Tennessee will never be even close to “on the map” for any Democrat running for statewide office. |
